Umm, no!!

Modern, multigrade oil - cold oil is thin, hot oil is thick, so for example 5W-30 is at SAE5 viscosity at 0c and SAE30 at 100c.

Umm, no!!

The 5W refers to the low temperature viscometrics of the oil determined using a cold crank simulator. In reality what this means is that your oil will provide sufficient protection for the engine to crank down to a temperature of -25 deg C. The 30 does actually refer to the viscosity of the oil at 100 deg C which for a '30 grade' is 9.7 to 12.5 mm2/s iirc. For further clarification you need to consult SAE J300 which provides all the viscosity requirements for the SAE grade definition.

I open my car, start my car, drive my car, arrive at the destination and turn off the engine, get out and lock it up. As do many millions of people around the world in many millions of different vehicles, from cars, trucks, vans, tractors and so on, are they not designed to just be used?

I am with BossFox, there are millions of cars and you will always get another as they are still making new ones.

The article is a bit over the top IMO.

Also, Fabia MK2 vRS runs oil pump for a period of time after the ignition is switched off so the oil doesn't sit there cooking off. If you do not have oil circulating, you stopped your car just having a spirited drive, turbo is close to exhaust gasses temp on the exhaust manifold side. Granted, such temps drop down rather quickly but still no oil is rated for 500C and I think this is what the article is referring to. Another way of dealing with this is not give a hoot and buy a new turbo or new car

I'm pretty sure leaving my hand on the Superbs gearstick doesn't kill the gearbox, it's and auto

Out of the manuals we have, one is fwd, so is remote, one is rwd but uses rods and 3 are rwd non remote (3 are the same gearbox) but have no vertical travel in the stick and it won't damage the gears. I'll take my chances I think

One of my Turbos runs 15 psi and is raced. I've turned the engine off straight away and its fine. I do run it for a bit most the time though, its a good habit I think

I do not think turning a raced car off will set off any fireworks immediately. It will certainly not increase its seals longevity and you will be blowing white smoke before you know it. Running oil pump after the engine switched off is such an easy and effective solution.

we had a Mazda pick up when I worked on the farm everybody rested there hand on the gearstick when driving until one day the thing would change out of fourth, after stripping the box, the selector had completely gone! worn out by light pressure on the gearstick by all who drove it!

It was a great pick up, it went anywhere on the farm but would get stuck and need a tow out, it was replaced by a series 3 Landrover.

James, didn't you notice, the article was an overkill . It's intrinsic to human psyche to absolve one's behavior no matter the arguments - "If I keep my hand on the stick and had no problems so far then article is rubbish" or "I never changed tyres to winter ones, never had an accident because of that hence winter tyres or not necessary and don't do what people say they do"... millions of flies cannot be wrong" attitude combined with "baaa, baaa" herding instincts prevail - after all thinking is rumored to hurt!

I know that. It is all what IF and we know that IF your aunty has balls she will be your uncle.

It is trying to highlight bad habits like riding the clutch etc. I hope I am not that daft Jabo

Rubbish, every tuner worth his salt knows that riding the clutch gives you more poowaaah!

I can smell groupie coming over... *scampers away with his tail between his legs*

BTW, re bad habits. Try out that AA iPhone app simulating "insurance black box" ... there you go "AADrivescore" brilliant fun!

42 miles worth of short (<4mile) deliveries. So am I killing it ? Most definitely :(.

I thought I was a bit obsessive always giving a car 30-60 seconds before I drive off and not hitting the revs until the temp gauge has moved up a bit but the rest of that advice sounds a tad extreme.

Treat your car like you would your mistress.

#3 is absolute codswallop!

The whole turbo still spinning thing and coked up oil is a myth! Theoretically if you were driving at the redline and killed the engine immediately while still moving then it might spin for a few seconds, but nobody does this in the real world.

As for bringing turbos back down to temperature again, a turbo charger with hot gasses still running through it in a heat soaked engine bay, surrounded by heat shields is going to lose hardly any temperature at all.

Very true. On two of my turbo diesels I run EGT (exhaust gas temperature) gauges. These have probes fitted into the manifold at the turbo entry, measuring the gas temperature directly into the turbocharger.

I use these for tuning as well as hot-shutdown protection. Basically I don't shut them down if the EGT is higher than about 250C. (180C is warm idle).

I almost never have to idle them down. Pulling off a 100km/h road, they are cool enough to shut down immediately. You have to either be accelerating all the way up to your house or have just climbed a decent hill to require any idle-down time.

Petrol engines can't cool their turbos quickly from idling, for that reason they have jacketed water cooling.

And also, the 200k rpm in the article is *******s. None of mine spin faster than 130,000rpm and that's at max airflow (max boost and 4000rpm).

Driving a car kills it. They only live so long.

When it's dead you can buy another.

Indeed. I kill my vehicles daily. But it'll take years to properly finish the job.

Thrashing them while cold? Yes I do that too. High load and turbo boost is great for getting an engine up to temp quickly. I don't use high rpm when cold. That's just silly.

I get in, start the engine, turn the music on, seatbelt. I can roll to the main road as its slighty down hill so roll in second gear. Then drive normal.

If ive been driving like a mad man i will usually give it 30 seconds just to chill out before knocking it off

Sent from my iPhone 4s

I use the oil temp on the mfd as a guide to when the engine is warm enough to make good progress, and when not to switch it off. In practice, since I live in a suburban housing area like most people, it's impossible to arrive at my house with the engine too hot to switch off immediately.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

BTW, re bad habits. Try out that AA iPhone app simulating "insurance black box" ... there you go "AADrivescore" brilliant fun!

I downloaded and tried that app at the weekend and its useless! I drove 190 miles and scored 89 overall, I then drove 4 miles and it went down to 64 and then later on in the day did 6 miles and got it up to 100% it just makes it up as it goes along!

I downloaded and tried that app at the weekend and its useless! I drove 190 miles and scored 89 overall, I then drove 4 miles and it went down to 64 and then later on in the day did 6 miles and got it up to 100% it just makes it up as it goes along!

I never said it was useful but fun - if this is how real black boxes work than thank you but no thank you

I scored 80 having just one measurement and that was on a MPG chase run. Still got some stick for braking too hard at one point

I let my car idle for about 30 seconds before switching off (about a minute after a long run) even though the turbo has probably cooled down with low speed running before I arrive at home. I think you would only really fry your turbo bearings if you gunned your car up a hill in the south of France in the middle of summer and then immediately turned the motor off. I think probably a greater danger would be thrashing a car from cold before the oil has had a chance to warm up and not servicing the car regularly.

Yes. Every time it's driven. Some take longer to die than others so just get on with it.

I'm guilty of driving with one hand on the gearknob if i'm honest, pretty good with everything else.

The cooling the turbo thing is ridiculous. Most cars, and our CR engined diesels now keep the oil pump going after you turn off the engine, for the precise reason of supplying fresh oil to a hot turbo.

Also, as above, most people have at least 5 minutes of town driving before they arrive home so probably aren't giving it the beans and then turning off their engines.

Their 'driving off too quickly' comment is silly too, although I agree about revving too high too soon. I never rev above 2,500 RPM until warm.

Suggesting that redlining your car is bad is silly too, yes, redlining it every gear change is bad, but once in a while isn't.

Suggesting that redlining your car is bad is silly too, yes, redlining it every gear change is bad, but once in a while isn't.

So 1st , 2nd and mabie 3rd is all good?